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Learning to Self-Evolve

Xiaoyin Chen, Canwen Xu, Yite Wang, Boyi Liu, Zhewei Yao, Yuxiong He · Mar 19, 2026 · Citations: 0

Long Horizon
Open arXiv Find Implementation RSS feed Shortlist (0)

How to use this page

Low trust

Use this as background context only. Do not make protocol decisions from this page alone.

Best use

Background context only

What to verify

Validate the evaluation procedure and quality controls in the full paper before operational use.

Evidence quality

Low

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Abstract

We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time. We situate LSE in the setting of test-time self-evolution, where a model iteratively refines its context from feedback on seen problems to perform better on new ones. Existing approaches rely entirely on the inherent reasoning ability of the model and never explicitly train it for this task. LSE reduces the multi-step evolution problem to a single-step RL objective, where each context edit is rewarded by the improvement in downstream performance. We pair this objective with a tree-guided evolution loop. On Text-to-SQL generation (BIRD) and general question answering (MMLU-Redux), a 4B-parameter model trained with LSE outperforms self-evolving policies powered by GPT-5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5, as well as prompt optimization methods including GEPA and TextGrad, and transfers to guide other models without additional training. Our results highlight the effectiveness of treating self-evolution as a learnable skill.

Abstract-only analysis — low confidence

All signals on this page are inferred from the abstract only and may be inaccurate. Do not use this page as a primary protocol reference.

  • This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.
  • The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.
Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub

Should You Rely On This Paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

Main weakness

This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

0/100 • Low

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Detected

Usefulness for eval research

Adjacent candidate

Extraction confidence 25%

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here:

Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub Tool-Use Eval Hub

What We Could Verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time."

Evaluation Modes

missing

None explicit

Validate eval design from full paper text.

"We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time."

Benchmarks / Datasets

partial

MMLU, MMLU Redux, BIRD

Useful for quick benchmark comparison.

"On Text-to-SQL generation (BIRD) and general question answering (MMLU-Redux), a 4B-parameter model trained with LSE outperforms self-evolving policies powered by GPT-5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5, as well as prompt optimization methods including GEPA and TextGrad, and transfers to guide other models without additional training."

Reported Metrics

missing

Not extracted

No metric anchors detected.

"We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time."

Human Feedback Details

  • Uses human feedback: No
  • Feedback types: None
  • Rater population: Not reported
  • Expertise required: General

Evaluation Details

  • Evaluation modes:
  • Agentic eval: Long Horizon
  • Quality controls: Not reported
  • Evidence quality: Low
  • Use this page as: Background context only

Protocol And Measurement Signals

Benchmarks / Datasets

MMLUMMLU-ReduxBIRD

Reported Metrics

No metric terms were extracted from the available abstract.

Research Brief

Metadata summary

We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time.
  • We situate LSE in the setting of test-time self-evolution, where a model iteratively refines its context from feedback on seen problems to perform better on new ones.
  • Existing approaches rely entirely on the inherent reasoning ability of the model and never explicitly train it for this task.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against others mentioning MMLU.
  • Validate inferred eval signals (Long-horizon tasks) against the full paper.
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended Queries

MMLU

Research Summary

Contribution Summary

  • We introduce Learning to Self-Evolve (LSE), a reinforcement learning framework that trains large language models (LLMs) to improve their own contexts at test time.

Why It Matters For Eval

  • Abstract shows limited direct human-feedback or evaluation-protocol detail; use as adjacent methodological context.

Researcher Checklist

  • Gap: Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Gap: Evaluation mode is explicit

    No clear evaluation mode extracted.

  • Gap: Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Pass: Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    Detected: MMLU, MMLU-Redux, BIRD

  • Gap: Metric reporting is present

    No metric terms extracted.

Related Papers

Papers are ranked by protocol overlap, extraction signal alignment, and semantic proximity.

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